|
If we can trace neither to material agencies [blind elements]
nor to any deliberate intention the influences from without which
reach to us and to the other forms of life and to the terrestrial
in general, what cause satisfactory to reason remains?
The secret is: firstly, that this All is one universally
comprehensive living being, encircling all the living beings
within it, and having a soul, one soul, which extends to all its
members in the degree of participant membership held by each;
secondly, that every separate thing is an integral part of this
All by belonging to the total material fabric- unrestrictedly a
part by bodily membership, while, in so far as it has also some
participation in the All. Soul, it possesses in that degree
spiritual membership as well, perfect where participation is in
the All-Soul alone, partial where there is also a union with a
lower soul.
But, with all this gradation, each several thing is affected by
all else in virtue of the common participation in the All, and to
the degree of its own participation.
This One-All, therefore, is a sympathetic total and stands as one
living being; the far is near; it happens as in one animal with
its separate parts: talon, horn, finger, and any other member are
not continuous and yet are effectively near; intermediate parts
feel nothing, but at a distant point the local experience is
known. Correspondent things not side by side but separated by
others placed between, the sharing of experience by dint of like
condition- this is enough to ensure that the action of any
distant member be transmitted to its distant fellow. Where all is
a living thing summing to a unity there is nothing so remote in
point of place as not to be near by virtue of a nature which
makes of the one living being a sympathetic organism.
Where there is similarity between a thing affected and the thing
affecting it, the affection is not alien; where the affecting
cause is dissimilar the affection is alien and unpleasant.
Such hurtful action of member upon member within one living being
need not seem surprising: within ourselves, in our own
activities, one constituent can be harmed by another; bile and
animal spirit seem to press and goad other members of the human
total: in the vegetal realm one part hurts another by sucking the
moisture from it. And in the All there is something analogous to
bile and animal spirit, as to other such constituents. For
visibly it is not merely one living organism; it is also a
manifold. In virtue of the unity the individual is preserved by
the All: in virtue of the multiplicity of things having various
contacts, difference often brings about mutual hurt; one thing,
seeking its own need, is detrimental to another; what is at once
related and different is seized as food; each thing, following
its own natural path, wrenches from something else what is
serviceable to itself, and destroys or checks in its own interest
whatever is becoming a menace to it: each, occupied with its
peculiar function, assists no doubt anything able to profit by
that, but harms or destroys what is too weak to withstand the
onslaught of its action, like fire withering things round it or
greater animals in their march thrusting aside or trampling under
foot the smaller.
The rise of all these forms of being and their modification,
whether to their loss or gain, all goes to the fulfillment of the
natural unhindered life of that one living being: for it was not
possible for the single thing to be as if it stood alone; the
final purpose could not serve to that only end, intent upon the
partial: the concern must be for the whole to which each item is
member: things are different both from each other and in their
own stages, therefore cannot be complete in one unchanging form
of life; nor could anything remain utterly without modification
if the All is to be durable; for the permanence of an All demands
varying forms.
|
|